Lautenberg trended around the world on Twitter that day, with Google counting more than 100,000 searches for the senator.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg with future president Barack Obama at NJPAC in 2005 for an event honoring Lautenberg's two decades of senate service. The senator trended upon his death Monday and a second time for talk of a special election to fill his seat.Star-Ledger archive photo

On Tuesday, when Gov. Chris Christie announced he would call a special election to fill Lautenberg's seat, he trended in the U.S. alongside Lautenberg.

Then came the impending demise of Maxwell's, the rock club and restaurant which had served as a launching pad and performance space for Jersey bands such as Yo La Tengo and the Feelies, with other major acts like Nirvana playing there over the years.

News about the venue's planned July closing, as first reported by The Star-Ledger, got Maxwell's and its home city — Hoboken — in the U.S. trends Monday, with many tweets expressing shock and lament over the news. A "Keep Maxwell's NJ Open" Facebook page cropped up, drawing hundreds of "likes."

Nice day for a 'Red Wedding'

HBO series "Game of Thrones" minted a social media cavalcade last Sunday when the bloody, lusty drama aired an episode called "The Rains of Castamere," though it may as well have been called "The Rains of Casta-meme."

The account @redweddingtears is now specifically devoted to retweeting fans who were traumatized/saddened/crestfallen/angered by the show's turn of events. Its profile picture is of Bayonne native George R.R. Martin, the author of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" books upon which the TV drama is based.

Esther Williams, the 91-year-old beauty of Hollywood swim movie fame — who starred in film musicals like 1944's "Bathing Beauty" — generated a sea of tweets Thursday following her death.

"590M Powerball" hit Twitter Wednesday when the identity of the jackpot's winner was revealed to be 84-year-old Gloria Mackenzie of Zephyrhills, Fla. Tropical Storm Andrea swirled into the trends soon after, along with "Gulf of Mexico," upon news of the storm's formation there.

Another major topic early in the week was Michael Douglas and his relationship with oral sex. When the actor drew a correlation between his throat cancer, HPV and oral sex, both HPV and Douglas soared to the top of the trends, the actor's name remaining there for hours, also manifesting as a popular Google search Sunday.

Jason Kidd, formerly of the (then) New Jersey Nets, got tweets around the world Monday after the announcement of his retirement. So did Michelle Obama, for her pointed answer to a heckler who started in at a private Washington, D.C. fundraiser where the First Lady was speaking.

"Listen to me or you can take the mic," Obama told the woman.

That may have been a Vine-able moment, but the potential for more Vines in general emerged when Twitter's mobile video clip service rolled out its Android app.

Joe Gorga: worldwide trend.Bravo

Trending Monday: Vine for Android. Related: An Ohio teen managed to "rickroll" (post Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up") the video network, causing a system crash after he uploaded the entire music video despite Vine's time limits on recording.

Back in the news the same day was Aurora, Colo. theater gunman James Holmes, a worldwide topic for a judge's acceptance of his insanity plea.

And last Sunday, two major New Jersey events were audible on social networks.